www.news.com.auA ROOFTOP protest at Villawood's detention centre that lasted more than a week has ended with all those involved now off the roof
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430 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S IMPOSSIBILITY TAX
Tim Blair – Saturday, April 30, 11 (04:51 pm)
Michael Pascoe, a warmy, considers Labor’s carbon tax progress:
The ineptitude is so blatant, one might almost wonder if the government is serious about pricing carbon. In a reasonably rational world, getting a carbon tax off the ground shouldn’t be the impossibility the government seems determined to make it. The performance so far only makes sense if it’s an attempt to ensure the independents in the lower house vote against it.
For a start, carriage of the carbon tax proposal has been left to the Department of Climate Change, not an organisation to inspire confidence. Replacing Penny Wong with Greg Combet as the relevant minister doesn’t change the climate or the department’s credibility; this is the same mob that couldn’t administer the installation of Pink Batts and came up with the fuzzy and failed green loans scheme.
Meanwhile, Rio Tinto and Alcoa join dairy farmers, barley growers, insurance companies, local councils, state governments, CFOs, food and grocery producers, miners, union members, Gerry Harvey, G&S Engineering, Sam Gadaleta and BHP in either questioning or directly opposing the dioxide doom tax.
UPDATE. Add Queensland Labor members to the list:
One veteran Labor activist reports that the carbon tax is friendless among party members.
(Via handjive)
FLYTRAP THING
Tim Blair – Saturday, April 30, 11 (03:35 pm)
Fox News commentators are unimpressed by Julia Gillard’s royal wedding costume:
It’s not quite so odd as Princess Beatrice’s hat, which now has its own site. Also, here’s some background on that sensational T-Mobile parody:
(Via royal reporters Julian and Andrew)
CLIVE ALIVE
Tim Blair – Saturday, April 30, 11 (03:03 pm)
Clive James, a friend of this site, is presently battling several illnesses, including leukemia. Being Clive, he is doing this with remarkable charm and wit.
Queen Quentin
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 01, 11 (07:27 am)
Governor General Quentin Bryce, the unelected Queen’s representative in Australia, is getting rather above herself. First she played at being a politician. Now she’s playing at being the Queen herself:
Bryce is subtly continuing the Australianisation of the office. She decided she would break with two centuries of vice-regal precedent and stopped writing traditional semi-annual letters to the monarch. The customary reports on developments in the imperial dominions were a pointless anachronism, she decided. A governor-general has no responsibility to brief the Queen on Australian affairs…
In another small but significant step, Bryce will be present in her own right when the Queen visits Perth in October for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
It is understood that the Prime Minister’s office has agreed with the Governor-General’s office that Bryce will attend part of the proceedings and host some sort of event in her own right… It has been customary that, when the Queen turns up, the governor-general, as her representative, no longer has any role and is “extinguished’’…
“She’s very good because she’s played at being an Australian queen,” says Professor Wayne Hudson of the University of Tasmania, an expert on Australian republicanism. “She wears beautiful clothes, she gives very well-written speeches, she’s very regal.”
“Regal” is another word for it, I guess.
Recipe for trouble
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 01, 11 (06:56 am)
Dennis Atkins says Julia Gillard cannot afford to drop her carbon dioxide tax, even though it’s loathed by even Labor voters:
One veteran Labor activist reports that the carbon tax is friendless among party members.
“I’ve been out door-knocking our people in one of the state electorates where we’ve got a pre-selection under way and anyone over 40 hates the idea,” said the party figure. “And the older they are, the more they hate it.”
(Via Tim Blair.)
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